Ghosts of Stonewall Jackson Training School

Daniel was 15 when he was sentenced to Stonewall Jackson Training School, a juvenile detention facility built in 1909, for first degree manslaughter of his father.












He was not a hardened criminal, but had acted out of love for his mother who would have surely died that night in 1947 by the hands of her abusive husband.


In less than 3 years at the reform school, Daniel had passed from the maximum security cottage to the minimum security cottage.






He was now able to work and move around freely on the 293 acres the school encompassed.


Every evening Daniel's job was to clean and lock the school's chapel.











Soon he would be 18 and a free man, but the thought saddened him; he was in love with Ellie Blum, a raven haired beauty, and the daughter of the school's administrator.

Ellie's family lived in the upper level of the Administration building.

In the evenings she would volunteer to close the entrance gates to the school so she could see Daniel.



From his vantage point, Daniel patiently waited for Ellie to leave before he went to the church.















He would cross the bridge which connected the school's property to the other side of the road on his route to the church.


Below the bridge was a country road the local teenagers often used for street racing usually
after consuming too much alcohol.










After closing the gates, Ellie would make her way to the chapel by crossing the road beyond the bridge, and out of sight from her parent's watchful eyes.


They would rendezvous for the few precious minutes they would have.

Under a full moon but very foggy night in 1950, the young couple began their nightly trek.

Daniel was on the bridge as he waited for Ellie to cross the road. It was a night so foggy you could not see beyond your own arm.

Behind him on the other side of the bridge, Daniel heard the rumble of engines and the screeching of tires.

In a matter of seconds the cars would be speeding under the bridge heading in Ellie's direction.

Other than jumping there was no time or faster way to get off the bridge to get within hearing range to warn Ellie.

Daniel jumped, but in doing so he shattered his ankle and was unable to save himself or the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Over the last 60 years, whenever there is a full moon, especially on a foggy night, you can see Daniel and Ellie as they continue their nightly journey into each others arms.





Stonewall Jackson Training School was the perfect setting for my story with its many period style buildings in their current state of disrepair. In daylight it had a spook factor that could only be surpassed by moonlight and a little fog. Both of these effects I felt would help set the stage for a good ghost story. Old houses are often portrayed in film and television as the backdrop for unsettled spirits to haunt. I wanted to add some historical facts about the school to add a bit of reality to the narrative. The first step in my process was to change the photographs into black and white which I felt added an ominous feel to the pictures. By removing the sky from the background, and adding a layer of stormy sky over each photo, I was able to simulate nighttime. The fog was necessary to tie in the tragic events which led to my couple's premature deaths, as well as adding to the stereotypical scary atmosphere. After having my friends pose in what I hoped looked 1950's attire, I cut and pasted their pictures on a different layer. I changed the size and adjusted the opacity to achieve the ghostly effects of my characters. Each picture was specifically placed to aid in the progression of the narrative. I felt the bridge picture supporting the welcome sign to Stonewall Jackson was a good introduction to the location and to the story. The sequence of the images provides a visual aid for the events as they unfolded. The picture of the moon was used to add to the atmosphere of the setting because we all know how weird things happen on full moons. I took the picture in my astronomy lab last year by utilizing an observatory telescope. If I were to change the order of the photographs, it would dictate changing the events of the story, and perhaps the fate of my protagonists.